Tests
by Ryou VeRua
Summary: Ryou has a crush on Malik, but it is obvious that Ryou isn't going to tell him any time soon. His friends attempt to help him. Who would have ever thought that a school test could bring them together? [for contest]


**Tests**

Randomness and silliness on my part. :P I'm glad that the contest brought me back to my favourite section! Yay, Angstshipping!

Thoughts: _Blah_

**Disclaimer:** Saying that I own Yu-Gi-Oh and its characters would be like saying that I like eating burnt toast and broccoli. Just…no, okay? No.

* * *

Tests, the most hated part of school life, after the dreaded exam. Students loathed them with their entire being, but having to endure them was inevitable. This is what one Ryou Bakura had to endure, along with the rest of his Biology class, that day.

Ryou wasn't too worried though. He had studied hard, memorizing as many facts as he could and using little tricks to keep others easy enough to recall. People always said that the best tricks to make were the ones most relevant to you. How true they were. There was one trick in particular that was so relevant to Ryou that it was frightening, and rather embarrassing, if anyone found out.

He remembered the day that it had first come to him like it was just yesterday.

It was a normal day, a normal class, where the teacher had been teaching them about mitosis, the asexual reproduction of cells. She had just finished writing the names of the stages on the board: Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase, and Cytokinesis.

"Now, for the unit test coming up, you're going to need to remember the order and names of the stages of mitosis," the teacher had announced. "I strongly suggest thinking up a trick to remember them by –"

"I Peed Myself At The Cleaners!" Katsuya Jounouchi had shouted out from the seat next to Ryou, and the whole class broke out into laughter.

_Ugh, that's disgusting,_ Ryou had thought. _There has to be something else…_

It was at that moment that Malik Ishtar had swaggered in, uniform nowhere in sight, his favourite purple tank top and cargo pants in its stead (how did Ryou know it was his favourite? It was something he had overheard Malik say, or so he told everyone else. In reality, it was one of the many details he had picked up about Malik after much observation).

The teacher had scowled at her most rebellious student and gave him a pink detention slip, which he had taken without so much as a blink; it was a ritual now.

Ryou had not been able to tear his eyes away; what was the teacher complaining about? With this revealing shirt on, more of that delicious tan skin was shown off, and his beautiful muscles weren't hidden from the world. Yes, Ryou had fallen hard for Malik.

It had taken a total of two days for Ryou to realize this. From the moment that Malik had first stepped into the classroom after moving in from Egypt, he had thought it was just a silly little crush because of Malik's good looks; then, Malik had approached him after school a day later to apologize to him (He wasn't sure what Malik was apologizing for, as he had been rather vague; when he had asked Yugi and the others about it they kept changing the subject so he had dropped it).

But oh! The way Malik walked, the way he talked, the mischievous glint that appeared in his eyes when he defied the teacher, the way his violet eyes seemed to sparkle as he swept the classroom with a glance – Ryou liked to imagine that Malik's eyes would stop on him for a moment, but that was just wishful thinking – Ryou had it all committed to memory so he could replay it in his mind's eye again and again.

It had been a bit embarrassing when Jounouchi had caught him drooling, though…

That class, though, had been rather dull up to that point, and after Malik was out of the spotlight of the entire class and in his designated seat, it resumed its former atmosphere, and most of the students fell back asleep. Not Ryou.

This could be attributed to the fact that it was a few moments later that Ryou had made a startling discovery: the perfect trick for remembering the names and order of mitosis, or Interphase, Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase and Cytokinesis.

Ryou had stared down at what he had written, blushing furiously: In Purple, Malik's Always Too Cute.

Ryou had picked up the paper, holding it close to his chest protectively, his eyes darting around the classroom to spot any would-be spies. He could almost picture himself as a mother lion with his fangs bared, keeping his cubs safely away from all predators. His cubs being his rapidly growing crush…he hadn't believed it possible, but his cheeks had darkened further.

In the present time, Ryou scribbled furiously on his test paper. He had started daydreaming in the middle of his test! His unit test, of all things! If he failed that…the teacher had given them not-so subtle warnings about the consequences of a failed unit test, most involving 'bomb test, bomb course', etc. He needed these marks desperately…

A quick glance up at the clock – when had time speeded up? It never went by that quickly when he needed it to! – told him he had less then a minute to complete the last question, and the teacher going up and down the rows, collecting papers, reinforced the theory.

_NO!_ his mind screamed. _My test, it's mine! I'm so close, I just need to finish! I need to beat the clock!_

He heard his heart pounding in his ear as he raced against time; his pencil danced quickly across the paper, his hand was cramping up, the question was almost done, just a few seconds left –

"Please put your pencils down. Mazaki, if you don't mind collecting the rest of the papers…"

Anzu nodded and stood up, gathering the papers of the slow, the ones still reviewing their work feverishly, and the students like Jounouchi that were trying to sneak a word or two on; Ryou paid no attention to them however, simply leaning back against his chair and letting out the breath he hadn't known he had been holding, massaging his throbbing writing hand absent-mindedly. Another close call for Ryou Bakura…

"Now Mazaki, if you could pass around the tests so everyone else has a different one – no, you cannot choose whose test you mark, Jounouchi, nor can you choose who marks it –" Jounouchi's hand dropped back to his side quickly, a sheepish grin on his face, " – section A should be easy enough for everyone to mark. I'll do the rest myself, of course, but twenty-four of the same section being marked by all of you will be much faster then if just done by me. I have limited time on my hands anyways…" she gave a small cough, and the students gave each other grins.

Ryou made a face. _Ugh. Teacher love._ A sudden mental image of Mr. Karita, the gym teacher, surrounded by scantily clad women appeared in his head. _EEW!_

Anzu reached Ryou at the end of the row and took his test off the desk, giving him a small smile. "Tough test?"

"You have no idea…" murmured Ryou, giving with a weak smile of his own, "I barely finished it, I don't know if my writing is legible, and I think I have a hand cramp. Oh, and not to mention we have that theory test in music next period. Other then that though, I think I'm okay."

"Oh, you'll survive somehow," Anzu said teasingly, gave him Rica Takashi's test, and turned away, shuffling the rest of the papers.

"Thanks for the sympathy!" he called after her, getting only a dismissive wave of her hand as a response. He sighed and rested back against his chair again, mentally going over the answers in his head.

_Okay, I answered those questions about genes right – a mother with type A blood and a father with type O blood can't have a child with AB blood, that's easy…I did all the work, I didn't mix up genotypes and phenotypes, I think…no sense about worrying about it now though…I know I got the stages of mitosis right, thanks to my self-made trick –_

Ryou shot up in his desk. His statement, his trick – he had erased it, hadn't he? Ryou's eyes were so wide anyone looking at him may have thought they were on the verging of popping. _I-I…I erased it, didn't I? I must have…I wouldn't have left it on, for anyone to see…wait, just think back…I wrote them at the top of the front page…I skipped and answered the questions for them, then went back and answered the others…then…_

Ryou moaned. _Then I told myself I would go back and erase it after…but I didn't have time! I – why didn't I go back? It was on the front page, it was on full display…it's going to be all over the school by the end of the day…Who's marking my test?!_

Ryou had gone beyond a worrying and was bordering on a full-blown panic attack. He had barely stopped himself from jumping out of his desk and ripping the tests out of his unsuspecting classmates' hands. Anzu was still handing out the tests; she was two rows away from Malik at the moment, but getting closer and closer by the second. Maybe she would take pity on Ryou? If Anzu marked the test herself, and Ryou had her sworn to secrecy – but what if she had already handed it out?

"Jounouchi!" Ryou hissed. "Who has my test?"

"Huh?" Jounouchi mumbled, staring with an almost frighteningly evil grin on his face at Seto Kaiba's test. "Oh, I dunno…wasn't really paying attention…hey, do you think it would look suspicious if Kaiba got a zero on this section?"

"You mean the Kaiba who is only taking these classes because it's law, and is currently averaging a mark that is over one hundred? The same Kaiba who often has to go and correct the teachers about the mistakes in their teachings?" Ryou deadpanned.

"Well, duh. You know any other Kaibas?"

Ryou shook his head almost sadly. "No, Jounouchi, it would look perfectly innocent, and the teacher wouldn't suspect a thing." _Why am I talking about this when I have a crisis on my hands!_

"I'll ignore the sarcasm this time, my good buddy, because fate has smiled upon me today!" said Jounouchi, beaming, as he wrote a big red 'x' on all of the questions.

_Poor Kaiba…wait, no, poor me! My life is over! _

His eyes searched the room frantically, and then widened. Anzu was handing a test to Malik with a smile that was just too angelic to be innocent; could he possibly see it from there? Pencil marks at the top right corner of the page, the bottom right corner ripped off, from where Ryou had erased too hard…it was his test, there was no mistake.

It was then that the world exploded.

"Jounouchi, I hope you don't mind marking my test, as you seem to be done yours anyways," Ryou said in an unnaturally calm voice.

"Hm? Why can't you mark your –"

There was a loud thud as Ryou fell out of his chair and onto the floor in a dead faint.

"Oh."

-o-O-o-O-o-

"Bakura? Bakura, wake up!"

Ryou opened his eyes slowly, wincing as bright light filled his vision. As his vision began to clear, three blurry forms came into view; the one closest to his face with abnormally spiked hair.

The figure gave a loud, relieved sigh as Yugi's face finally stopped swaying in front of him. "Good to see you're alive, at least. You gave us a bit of a scare, collapsing in class like that! What happened?"

Ryou muttered something unintelligible as he pushed himself up, a hollow feeling eating him from the inside out. He had almost forgotten…Malik knew now. He knew! Ryou had been waiting (putting off) telling Malik that he liked him until he felt that he stood a little bit of a chance! If Anzu hadn't given Malik his test, this never would have happened –

Wait, where was Anzu? Ryou's eyes narrowed, and he looked around. He was in the nurse's office, it seemed. Jounouchi was there, lounging by the counter, looking through pill bottles he should probably not have even taken out of the cupboard, Honda was spinning on an office chair, evidently bored now that Ryou had finally woken up, and Yugi was at his side, watching him closely, but there was no Anzu to be found.

"Where is Anzu?" said Ryou, struggling to keep his voice calm.

"Where is…oh, she went ahead to the next class with Malik," Yugi said, "and for that matter," he added, glancing at his watch, "class is starting soon, so if you're feeling better, you better head off. Don't you have a test?"

"She set me up!" growled Ryou, looking quite unlike his normally calm self with his hair messy and his eyes like slits, ignoring Yugi completely. "I can't believe her – I trusted her! She was my friend! When I see her next, I swear –"

He never got to say what he was going to do because Honda then unceremoniously shoved him off his bed from behind. "Rise and shine, Ryou! Time for you to go!" said Honda in a completely overly cheerful manner, picking Ryou up off the floor and pushing him out the door before Ryou could respond.

"But Honda –" Ryou sputtered.

"You can talk to her and vent all of your rage then! Besides, you have a test, go go go!" Honda said, giving Ryou one last push out the door.

Ryou spun around only to have the door shut in his face; seeing it was futile, he grumbled and stalked to the music room, muttering venomously under his breath about traitorous friends.

On the other side of the door, Honda leaned back, letting out his breath in a long sigh. "Never seen him like that before…I feel bad for Anzu, really, but it _was_ her idea."

"It's worth it though," Yugi smiled. He tapped the puzzle knowingly. "Even Yami agrees it's been too long. Besides, I haven't seen Malik this happy since he and Rishid were reunited with Isis at the end of Battle City."

"Too bad the wuss had to faint like that though. It at least gave Malik a chance to look after him. Ah well!" said Jounouchi, grinning. "Things are going great for everybody today!"

A smile that Jounouchi did not like spread across Honda's face. "That reminds me…Kaiba was looking for you, Jounouchi, and I don't think it's because he wants to invite you to a duel monsters tournament."

Jounouchi paled considerably.

-o-O-o-O-o-

The test had already started when Ryou reached the classroom, so he was forced to abandon his 'confront the evil Anzu and beg for forgiveness from Malik' plan. Instead, after being reprimanded by the disgruntled music teacher and receiving his test, he hurried to the seat in the front row with his fellow flute players and wished he could sink into the floor to avoid further embarrassment.

As that hadn't happened yet, he resolved that writing his test would be a reasonable substitute.

Write the subtonic for the following scales: D, B, E, F sharp. The sound of pencils scribbling filled the room.

_A sharp, B flat, Malik's going to kill me! Submediant, minor triad, Anzu is so dead!_

He gazed back at Malik for a brief moment. As if Malik could sense his eyes on him, he looked up from his test and for one, terrible moment, their eyes met.

Ryou ducked his head back again to his own test. _Agh! I'm sorry Malik!_

More scribbling, more time passing quickly by, but Ryou hadn't noticed the test was over until Anzu was tugging it from beneath his pencil.

"I need to pass around the tests again, can you please let go?"

"Anzu…" Ryou said in a low hiss, gripping his test paper so tightly that his knuckles were white.

Anzu gave a small squeak and shoved another test paper into his hands; she gave Ryou's test an almighty tug and managed to pry it from his hands and hurried away. "Answers are on the blackboard!"

"I'm not done with you!" Ryou hollered after her, but she was already halfway across the classroom by that time. He glanced down at the test Anzu gave to him and almost screamed in frustration. The name at the top of the page said 'Malik Ishtar'. _Anzu…_

What he saw next though, froze him. Frustration gave way to puzzlement, which in turn gave way to –

"Oh my…" Ryou murmured, his cheeks stained red. His finger traced over the letters unconsciously, his mind having left for a far happier place a long time ago.

There were two sentences written right below Malik's name, the one the teacher had taught them to make for remembering the order of sharps and flats. Sharps were written right above and were perfectly normal, the usual 'Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle' being in place. Below, though, was an interesting, creative (_And rather flattering,_ Ryou thought) statement for the flats: Bakura's Exceptional Ass Drives Girls Crazy Forever.

With a long arrow pointing from Malik's second answer, _B Melodic Minor_, were the hastily scrawled words 'But Mostly Malik.'

Ryou couldn't believe it. He just couldn't. That would be…too easy, right? This only happened in fiction! But still…Ryou looked up slowly at the tanned figure that had walked in front of him. Malik looked down at Ryou, grinning nervously.

"So…are you feeling better? I saw you faint earlier, during Bio."

Ryou blushed. "I…I'm fine." He looked back down at his test and let a small laugh escape his lips. "You're a bit of a pervert, aren't you."

"Guilty as charged!" Malik laughed. He sat down beside Ryou (after a nasty glare at the girl who sat beside him normally, who was quick to move). "So, how did I do on the test?"

"Oh…" Ryou went down the paper with his red pen, frowning.

"Bakura?"

"You only got five out of sixteen right."

Malik winced.

"I could…always tutor you tonight, since you seem to be having trouble – if you aren't busy, of course," Ryou said, blushing.

There was silence…and then Malik smiled. "It's a date!"

"What? I-I never said it was a date!"

"You were implying it, though!"

"I…well…"

"Ha, see! I knew it!"

There was no magical moment, no fireworks, no amazing, earth-shattering kiss, but Malik and Ryou didn't seem to mind. They spent the rest of the class bickering playfully with each other, and when the bell rang, it almost went unnoticed by both of them. The gradual emptying of the classroom clued them in though, and they started packing things up sheepishly when the teacher came over to them to 'escort' them out of the classroom (better known to the students as 'threatening them with a detention if they didn't get moving').

When they were a safe distance away from the music room, Malik handed Ryou a slip of paper.

"My number and address," Malik explained when Ryou looked at him questioningly. "I'll expect you to come around six or seven tonight, okay? I'll see if I can get Isis to cook some dinner for you too."

Ryou nodded, stuffing the paper in his pocket happily. "I'll be there at six, I promise."

"You better be!" joked Malik, wagging his finger threateningly.

Ryou turned away from Malik and started walking to his locker, trying to resist the urge to giggle and shout like a little girl. _I'm going out with Malik, I'm going out with Malik, I'm going out with –_ and then he did give a loud squeak as he felt a pinch on his behind, spinning around and giving Malik a furious glare.

Malik laughed and gave Ryou an exaggerated, flirtatious wink. "Gotta love those flats."

Watching quietly from the other side of the hallway, Ryou's four friends gave each other congratulatory hand shakes.

"Job well done, guys!" beamed Anzu. "I knew we could get them together!"

"That's all well and good," Yugi said, frowning, "but there's still something that bugs me."

"What is it?" asked Honda.

"Well, you see, I was wondering what happened to Kai–"

"_JOUNOUCHI!_" echoed Kaiba's voice from the down the hallway, the tall brunette standing with his blue eyes narrowed menacingly and promising death behind the double doors.

Jounouchi ran.

* * *

You all know who Mr. Karita is, right? That ugly teacher with the crew cut in the seventh manga. Agh! I hate him so much!

And you know what I noticed? Most people do call Ryou 'Bakura', but some (like Jounouchi) do actually call him Ryou in the manga. Probably because of his overall lack of mannerisms… --;

Okay, I loved writing this. My favourite contest fic so far, I reckon. Though…it has nothing to do with the fact that Ryou is a main character and part of the pairing…and it's Angstshipping, one of my favourite pairings of all time…of course not… 7.7

Edited December 16, 2006 (Thank you Leencz!)


End file.
